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A sudden harshness swept away the pining in his eyes like violent wind.
“Do not say her name,” he snarled. “Do not draw her attention to you.”
I felt a chill climbing up my spine, but I didn’t let it show on my face as I narrowed my eyes on him. “So, she terrifies even you?”
“I do not worry about myself,” he said coldly, morphing into another person who was utterly alien to me. “Do not whisper her name to give her power,” he warned further.
“Then tell me about Who-Should-Not-Be-Whispered. How is she connected to me? Is she my enemy?”
His face turned ashen.
“Your time of staying Fae is limited, as is mine,” he said, his voice hard yet controlled. “I have no intention of letting any third party look into our conversation.”
He was telling me he wasn’t free.
Blood tie. He was enslaved by his blood tie to Queen Tianna.
He didn’t want me to say her name, for fear the queen would hear me. Was she the evil that had creeped up on me in the great hall?
Was she listening through Elvey now?
Icy rage like no other coursed in my bloodstreams, as if in my soul, I knew someone took what was mine.
Mine.
“My true purpose to seeking your audience today, Queen Fury,” Elvey said blankly as if someone was indeed watching him, but I could not tell, other than that he shivered for a second. “Is to issue a challenge of a duel.”
“You want to duel me?”
“In my counsel,captain Fomorian will duel any of the champions you choose, or yourself, for that matter, in the old arena of the City of Nine ofPandemonium. The winner takes all. If your champion wins, no hunter here will go after you again, and you’ll also win my shipMistress. But if Fomorian wins, he’ll take your heads—all three of them.”
“What if we refuse?” I said, my voice filling with steely ice.
“My ship will bomb and burn your jungle to rubble with everyone inside, until nothing remains,” he said, his voice inhuman and merciless. “Your best move is to accept the challenge.”
“You and your demons can easily ambush us in the arena,” I said.
“I’ll make sure no one cheats,” he said. Even his former smile of sunshine turned to blade now.
“How can I trust your word that it will be a fair game?” I said to my enemy.
“You can’t trust anyone,” he said. “But the duel is your only way out of here. Win or die.”
A flash of light blurred in front of me, and Elvey vanished with it.
CHAPTER 18
I flew back toward my chamber, my two Furies following me in a straight line. The jungle was spacious, but still didn’t have enough room for three of us to fly next to each other with our massive wings.
My mind wandered between Elvey and the dragon princes. It wasn’t like I had to choose between them. Elvey had played me for a fool before he’d delivered the ultimatum. He’d chosen to make an enemy out of me.
Then why did I feel like my heart was bleeding when I tore our connection off? I needed to harden my heart, so when I met him on the battlefield, I’d do what I had to do. Elvey had made it clear it was me against him and his demons.
I caught a blur of movement beneath me. As I looked, Rai, Blaze, and Iokul rushed toward me. They’d refused to wait in the chamber for me and tracked me down there.
My Fury forms landed before them, and the dragon princes were swift to brake themselves on our collision course.
Relief flashed by their eyes as they saw all of me was unharmed.
